


unbroken in the breaking light

by language_escapes



Series: Instead of My Saints 'verse [6]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-18
Updated: 2011-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-27 12:30:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/language_escapes/pseuds/language_escapes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rossi knows they don't accept him yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	unbroken in the breaking light

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the Instead of My Saints 'verse. Rossi steps in to join the Hotchner-Gideon household after Gideon leaves in order to ensure that Hotch can keep the kids.

Even though they act normal around him, Rossi knows they don’t accept him yet.

It isn’t their behavior that leads him to believe this. They act just fine around him. Spencer seemed eager for his approval, and worked hard to get it. It was a little disconcerting, but it was normal, at least according to Hotch’s parenting magazines that were stashed under the bed.

JJ gave him little nods at her soccer games. The rest of her family got a wave from the girl, but her acknowledgement meant something to him. It wouldn’t be beyond her to hate him because of what he represented.

Penelope had been a harder sell, but Hotch had talked to her about not putting viruses on Rossi’s computer, and since then she’d been better. She’d even offered to defragment his computer for him, which from Penelope was a peace offering.

Emily was polite, engaged him in conversation, told him about her day, showed him her homework- and Rossi knew perfectly well that that didn’t mean she liked him (her mother had been an ambassador, after all, and Emily knew all about diplomacy), but she appear to hate him. Emily was Switzerland.

Derek was… well, he was Derek. A bundle of hostility and cool respect in waves. According to Hotch, Spencer had been the most hurt by Gideon’s departure, but Derek had been the most betrayed. Spencer, Hotch told him, was used to people leaving him. Derek had grown to hope that, maybe, this time, someone would stay. Derek seemed used to Rossi by now, and except for the few times where blistering insults flew, he treated Rossi with respect and courtesy.

No, it isn’t their outward behavior that makes Rossi know, deep in his gut, that they don’t accept him. It’s the little things, the small gestures. They normally wouldn’t bother him. Three ex-wives, he has to have a tough skin. Usually, it’s the big things that get to him. The screaming matches, followed by the inevitable silence. The destruction of his personal property. The occasional slap during a furious argument. Those are the things that normally bother him. But, dammit, this time he’s _trying_. This time, Rossi wants to make it work.

But the little things…

The mailperson continues to deliver Bird Watcher’s Digest and Birders World to the house. They slide through the slot, and Rossi can feel them hit the ground like a gunshot. The sound echoes through him every time, no matter where he is in the house. By the time he gets to the mail, they’re gone from the pile. The first time it had happened, he hadn’t paid it much mind. He’d heard the magazines hit the ground, and there had been nothing there when he went to get it. But when he started finding stacks of the magazines squirreled around the house… it upsets him, just slightly. He still can’t figure out which of the kids is taking them and putting them away for safe keeping. He asks Hotch about it, just the one time, just enough for Hotch to see how uncomfortable the magazines make him feel. And while Hotch is a wonderful mom, he isn’t always the best spouse, because he tells him, “just in case,” and Rossi can’t help but feel that he’s just the substitute until the real thing comes back.

It’s the fact that none of the kids will call him Dad. He never expected them to, not really, but when they introduce him, they introduce him as Mr. David Rossi. He’s not even their stepdad. He’s just another male figure in their life. Like a teacher. Mr. David Rossi, no relation. Mr. David Rossi, member of the community. Mr. David Rossi, lives in the same house, married to Mom, but has nothing to do with them. It stings.

They never offer up details about their lives. They don’t tell him the sacred bits of information about themselves. After two weeks living in the house with them, Rossi had finally caved and asked Hotch for their casefiles, because he couldn’t figure out why they were in the foster system. He hadn’t known that half of them had dead families, the other half had absent ones. When they visited the Sanitarium, it hadn’t been until Diana Reid walked up to them that Rossi realized they were there so Spencer could visit his biological mother. He finds out that Penelope has a boyfriend, Kevin, five weeks after they’ve started dating. It’s Hotch who tells him, with a strange look on his face, like he should have known. Rossi doesn’t know how he could have. They don’t trust him to keep their secrets.

It’s the fact that the clothes Gideon didn’t take with him are tucked away in the bottom drawer of the dresser in the laundry room. It’s the fact that they all look at him expectantly when he cooks, as though they expect a gourmet meal rather than his mediocre attempts at EasyMac. It’s the fact that they turned off Louis Armstrong when he walked into the room, and when he asked why, they told him dismissively that he wouldn’t like it anyway.

He never even knew that they had an older sister, Elle, until he found a photo album while cleaning.

They say good night to him, they hand him their report cards, they do the chores he asks them to do. When he asks, they tell him about their day. They complain to him about teachers and friends and enemies, and they listen to his advice with open expressions. They eat the food he prepares and tease him that he isn’t as good a cook as Mom. They behave, and they’re nice to him. But he feels like he’s walking in a shadow, and he isn’t blind to the way the kids look past him half of the time, as though they’re expecting someone else, someone better, to be standing behind him.

Rossi likes to pretend he is a patient man. He isn’t, not really, but he says he is because it inspires trust in people. He has tried to be patient. He is still trying. He wakes up every day, plasters on a smile, and weathers his way through the distant stares, the nervous fidgets, the sketchy smiles. Rossi is not a patient man, but he is a formidable one. He will endure.

The family portrait has Gideon in it.

They haven’t talked about getting a new one.

It’s the little things that can kill a man.


End file.
